Effect and process evaluation of a real-world school garden program on vegetable consumption and its determinants in primary schoolchildren

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a school garden program on children’s vegetable consumption and determinants and to gain insight into the process of the program. Methods: The “Taste Garden” is a real-world nine-week school garden program developed and implemented by a local organization. A total of 350 children (149 intervention group, 201 control group) filled out questionnaires on vegetable consumption, determinants and process of the program. Additionally, teachers filled out a process evaluation questionnaire. For effect evaluation, interaction effects (time x group) were considered, using multilevel repeated measures analyses in MLwiN 3.02. Interaction effects were repeated, taking into account quality of implementation (time x implementation group). Process evaluation was descriptively assessed with SPSS 24.0. Results: Overall, beside some practical concerns of teachers, the program was well perceived by teachers and children. However, an intervention effect of “The Taste Garden” was only found for knowledge (p = 0.02), with a very small effect size (0.55%). When taking into account implementation quality, only small effects were found for awareness (p between 0.005 and 0.007 and an effect size of 0.63%) and knowledge (p between 0.04 and 0.09 and an effect size of 0.65%). Conclusions: Evaluation of the real-world “Taste Garden” program, which was positively perceived by teachers, showed no effects on vegetable consumption and small effects on its determinants. Adaptations of the current format and longer follow-up periods are therefore recommended

The Quality of Life of Children Facing Life-Limiting Conditions and That of Their Parents in Belgium: A Cross-Sectional Study

Paediatric palliative care (PPC) aims to improve children’s quality of life, but this outcome is rarely measured in clinical care. PPC is provided in Belgium through six transmural paediatric liaison teams (PLTs) ensuring continuity of care for children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions (LLC/LTC). This study aims to measure the quality of life (QoL) of children with LLC/LTC followed-up by PLTs and the QoL of their parents. Methods: During interviews, an original socio demographic questionnaire, the Children palliative outcome scale—version 2 (CPOS-2), the Fragebogen für Kinder und Jugendliche zur Erfassung der gesundheitsbezogenen Lebensqualität (KINDL) and the Quality of life in life-threatening Illness-Family caregiver (QOLLTI-F) were filled in by PLT members. Statistics were used to investigate significant differences between scores. Results were discussed and interpreted with six PLTs. Results: 73 children aged 1–18 were included in the study. Especially for items focusing on emotional items, children reported their QoL as higher than their parents did. The QoL scores were not significantly associated with the child’s condition’s severity. Conclusions: This study provides, for the first time, an overview of the QoL of children and parents followed-up by PLTs in Belgium

Human fetal neuroblast and neuroblastoma transcriptome analysis confirms neuroblast origin and highlights neuroblastoma candidate genes

BACKGROUND: Neuroblastoma tumor cells are assumed to originate from primitive neuroblasts giving rise to the sympathetic nervous system. Because these precursor cells are not detectable in postnatal life, their transcription profile has remained inaccessible for comparative data mining strategies in neuroblastoma. This study provides the first genome-wide mRNA expression profile of these human fetal sympathetic neuroblasts. To this purpose, small islets of normal neuroblasts were isolated by laser microdissection from human fetal adrenal glands. RESULTS: Expression of catecholamine metabolism genes, and neuronal and neuroendocrine markers in the neuroblasts indicated that the proper cells were microdissected. The similarities in expression profile between normal neuroblasts and malignant neuroblastomas provided strong evidence for the neuroblast origin hypothesis of neuroblastoma. Next, supervised feature selection was used to identify the genes that are differentially expressed in normal neuroblasts versus neuroblastoma tumors. This approach efficiently sifted out genes previously reported in neuroblastoma expression profiling studies; most importantly, it also highlighted a series of genes and pathways previously not mentioned in neuroblastoma biology but that were assumed to be involved in neuroblastoma pathogenesis. CONCLUSION: This unique dataset adds power to ongoing and future gene expression studies in neuroblastoma and will facilitate the identification of molecular targets for novel therapies. In addition, this neuroblast transcriptome resource could prove useful for the further study of human sympathoadrenal biogenesis

Long-Term Outcomes of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Severe Treatment-Resistant Autoimmune Cytopenia in Children

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Belgian End-Of-Life Care Study Did Not Include French-speaking Units

Dear Editors, We have read with interest the article by Dombrecht et al. (2019) published in your journal in its edition of March 2019. The authors address a sensitive topic, namely the reported attitudes of neonatologists and neonatal nurses in the Flanders region of Belgium regarding complex issues around active end-of-live (EOL) practices for foetuses and neonates facing life-limiting conditions. As the authors correctly state in the abstract and full text, the survey was conducted among 8 centres located in the Flemish Community and did not include the 11 centres of the French Community of Belgium. This means that the title which presents the study as “a nationwide survey” is not correct. Furthermore, another representative study conducted collaboratively by those 11 French speaking neonatal intensive care units, with a very high response rate, was not taken into account (Aujoulat et al. 2018). Yet, this study led to quite different results and conclusions which could have broadened the discussion and nuanced the ethical and legal implications as well as the conclusions drawn by Dombrecht et al. (2019). Based on our clinical experience, we do acknowledge that EOL decisions in the perinatal period are complex, but that international guidelines and best practices regarding breaking bad news, involving parents in the decision-making process, dealing with uncertainty about prognosis, ensuring continuity of care by bereavement support, and offering supervision to teams might be helpful. In this respect, the absence of formal training in neonatal palliative care currently offered in Belgium is unfortunate (Arias et al., 2019). However, since 2014, despite some cultural or linguistic differences, the Belgian Paediatric Palliative Care group (www.bppc.be) brings together nurses, physicians, psychologists and social workers from all regions in Belgium, to discuss and elaborate national guidelines regarding paediatric palliative care. This may pave the way for future, hoped for, fruitful collaborations also in the field of neonatology, not only across Belgian teams but also at international level, where the complex psychosocial, medical, ethical and legal issues surrounding decisions and practices around EOL care to neonates are the object of much debate and controversies. Marie Friedel, paediatric nurse; Dr Marleen Renard, paediatrician, Prof. Hugo Devlieger neonatologist; Prof. Gaston Verellen, neonatologist. References: Arias N, Garralda E, Rhee JY. et al. EAPC Atlas of Palliative Care in Europe 2019. Vilvoorde: EAPC Press, 2019. Aujoulat I, Henrard S, Charon A, Johansson AB, Langhendries JP, Mostaert A, Vermeylen D, Verellen G; 11 neonatal intensive care units in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. End-of-life decisions and practices for very preterm infants in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation of Belgium. BMC Pediatr. 2018; 26;18(1):206. doi: 10.1186/s12887-018-1168-x. Dombrecht L, Deliens L, Chambaere K, Baes S, Cools F, Goossens L, Naulaers G, Roets E, Piette V, Cohen J, Beernaert K; NICU consortium. Neonatologists and neonatal nurses have positive attitudes towards perinatal end-of-life decisions, a nationwide survey. Acta Paediatr. 2019. doi: 10.1111/apa.14797. Pag

Covariates of amikacin disposition in a large pediatric oncology cohort.

OBJECTIVE: Amikacin pharmacokinetics (PK) in children display large variability due to maturational and disease-related covariates. The objective was to explore amikacin PK in a large pediatric oncology cohort, taking into account within-patient changes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical data and amikacin therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) observations were collected retrospectively from children with an oncology diagnosis receiving amikacin during febrile neutropenia. Individual amikacin PK parameters were calculated using a 1-compartment model with instantaneous input and first-order output. This approach was selected based on a pragmatic study design using TDM from routine clinical care, with availability of 2 TDM samples per treatment episode. To explore covariates of clearance (Cl) and volume of distribution (Vd), linear mixed models were used, modelling a random effect for patient to account for clustering due to repeated measurements. RESULTS: Based on 188 amikacin treatment episodes in 114 patients, median (interquartile range) amikacin Cl was 1.37 (1.05; 2.46) L/h and Vd 7.98 (5.66; 12.73) L. Height and creatinemia were significant covariates for Cl (marginal R2 71.1%), while weight, height, and creatinemia determined Vd (marginal R2 59.5%). CONCLUSION: We described extensive variability of amikacin PK in a large cohort of pediatric oncology patients, including within-patient changes across treatment episodes. Maturational covariates and creatinemia determined amikacin Cl and Vd, while primary non-maturational covariates were not significant. Our observations, based on combined clinical and PK data in children with oncology diagnoses, can be useful to feed dosing software programs to improve drug exposure in special populations.status: Published onlin